Testing neutrino mass generation mechanisms from the lepton flavor violating decay of the Higgs boson

Abstract

We investigate how observations of the lepton flavor violating decay of the Higgs boson (h→ℓℓ′) can narrow down models of neutrino mass generation mechanisms, which were systematically studied in Refs. [1,2] by focusing on the combination of new Yukawa coupling matrices with leptons. We find that a wide class of models for neutrino masses can be excluded if evidence for h→ℓℓ′ is really obtained in the current or future collider experiments. In particular, simple models of Majorana neutrino masses cannot be compatible with the observation of h→ℓℓ′. It is also found that some of the simple models to generate masses of Dirac neutrinos radiatively can be compatible with a significant rate of the h→ℓℓ′ process.